Authenticity in Voltourism

Theoretical and practical hegemony characterize varied forms of tourism. Tourism, the service-based product, has various commoditised subsidiaries in our neoliberal era.  In the Society of the Spectacle, Debord portrays tourism akin to a symbol of commodification “a by-product of the circulation of commodities” (Debord 1994). A traditional form of tourism such as mass tourism is a clear model of commoditized tourism. Volunteer tourism is one of the fastest growing significant forms of alternative tourism nowadays (Wearing 2001).  This paper aims to abstract and clarify the role of authenticity, the foremost motivation, in volunteer travel structure. The study explores the motives of the voltourists and whether authenticity has a major role in attracting them to selected tourism destinations. Also the study looks at voltourism as a decommodified form of tourism. Throughout the literature review, the study found that the majority of the voltourists travelled to satisfy their authentic needs alongside with new experiences while helping the other in building, teaching and caring, thus, authenticity has a major role in distinguishing voltourism form other forms of tourism. In addition, the study suggests that a sufficient level of interaction between tourists and local communities would create more decommodified and sustainable forms of tourism such as voltourism.

In the World English Dictionary “Authentic” is defined as follows:  “accurate in representation of the facts; trustworthy; reliable: an authentic account”. In tourism and according to Taylor (2001), there are many definitions for authenticity similar to the amount of people wrote concerning it. While Cohen (1988) sees that simultaneous authenticity with the search for unity linking the self and societal institutions, which gifted pre-modern existence with “reality” .It appears that authenticity stands for the search for the real and for the original appearance of the tangible objects and intangible experiences.   

It is a challenge for researchers of tourism to identify the real motivations behind travel. Classifying the types of tourism, however, does help in recognizing the motive behind such travel. Discerning the motivations behind tourism has guided research into tourism for numerous decades. This is clear by surveying the literature.

“Authenticity” is always present as a direct and indirect motive for travel. In fact, by looking through varied forms of tourism (cultural, historical, religious, rural, ecotourism voltourism), it is becomes clear that authenticity emerges as a major factor driving tourists to visit selected destinations.

In tourism and in volunteer tourism (voltourism) particularly, authenticity, the human quality, appears as a separate motive for most of the voltourists. According to MacCannell, (1999) who was a pioneer in addressing the role of authenticity in tourism, tourists search for authenticity by viewing their travel as a form of pilgrimage. Authenticity is a key issue in the attraction level for tourists (Ehrentraut, 1993), a flexible theme in tourism anthropology and social studies ((MacCannell, 1973), and an agenda for tourism studies (Wang, 1999). Authenticity could be as a real object in the tourist experience. Conceptualising authenticity as a social construction notion links it to the study of tourism in anthropology. Thus, authenticity could be described as “constructive”, which is to say, a result of a socially constructed experience of culture. Secondly it could also be described as “objective.” Here authenticity refers to the destination as an object such as a monument. Finally there is “existential authenticity.” This is based on the tourist activities, and this is what (Wang 1999) went to, for example: some tourists try to eat authentically and according to the destination’s people culture or way.

The complex nature of authenticity is simplified by linking its meaning to museums.  Museums have “authentic” or “inauthentic” materials, according to the production of the tourism products and where they are made by local people or manufactured outside of the destination country. According to Wang (1999), tourism products like food, housing, dress and art also could be described “authentic” or “inauthentic”, and authenticity in tourism applies on the tourist experience and the touring objective.

Some tourism researchers like Urry (1990) in The Tourist Gaze argue that tourists are aware of the impossibility of having authentic experiences while practicing inauthentic tourism activities. People would even enjoy doing many activities in their trips or holidays without considering authenticity. While commodification became a sign for many tourism activities, authenticity would appear as a non commodified motive to attract or divert more tourists for selected destinations.

Many values in our world, such as individualism, or the searches for authentic and valuable things are impacts of postmodernism on the tourism spectacle. In another words, authenticity would appear as a generally constructed theory injected into the tourism products to serve and attract more tourists, at this point we should be careful not to commodified authenticity like other social values.